For the second year running, the speed of Tottenham’s transfer business is encouraging, but the future of Harry Kane is threatening to hang over the club’s summer rebuild, writes Dan Kilpatrick.
Spurs have already signed goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, completed a permanent deal for Dejan Kulusevski (at a discount) and on Wednesday confirmed the £40m capture of James Maddison.
If Spurs sign a new centre-half in the coming days — Edmond Tapsoba is a target and there is interest in re-signing Clement Lenglet — they will have addressed the three biggest issues in the squad before new head coach Ange Postecoglou officially starts work on July 1.
However, the success or otherwise of Spurs’s summer now appears likely to be determined by Kane’s future, with Bayern Munich confident of landing the England captain, despite seeing an initial £60m bid rebuffed.
Kane broke Tottenham’s all-time goalscoring record in February with the winner against Manchester City.
It saw Kane move beyond Jimmy Greaves’ tally of 266 goals for Spurs, which had stood since 1970.
The next target in Kane’s sights is Alan Shearer’s record Premier League haul of 260 goals.
After a fine individual campaign in which he scored 30 goals, despite the north London club finishing eighth and having three head coaches, the forward is now only 48 away from passing Shearer’s tally.
One source had told me that offer [from Bayern] did go in, but Tottenham say no official bid has gone in, and their position remains the same: Kane is not for sale.
“Of course, bids can be done in various ways; official, written, phone conversations, verbal. It’s difficult to prove one way or the other unless you are in the room. But the facts are that Bayern Munich would very much like Harry Kane.
“Things have certainly moved on from the earlier part of the window where we were reporting Manchester United were interested. Today is a significant development because we do know Bayern Munich are very interested in Harry Kane.
“Tottenham are not prepared to entertain any offers and, as far as Daniel Levy is concerned, Kane will be a Spurs player next season.”
WWW.Afojsoccersports.com. 